New Series Expansions of the Gauss Hypergeometric Function

TL;DR

This paper introduces new rational function series expansions for the Gauss hypergeometric function that improve convergence near critical points and handle cases where parameter differences are integers, enhancing computational efficiency.

Contribution

The authors develop novel series expansions of the Gauss hypergeometric function that are valid near points where previous expansions struggled, especially when parameter differences are integers.

Findings

New expansions converge faster near critical points

Expansions are well-defined for integer parameter differences

Numerical tests show improved convergence over previous methods

Abstract

The Gauss hypergeometric function ${}_2F_1(a,b,c;z)$ can be computed by using the power series in powers of $z, z/(z-1), 1-z, 1/z, 1/(1-z),(z-1)/z$. With these expansions ${}_2F_1(a,b,c;z)$ is not completely computable for all complex values of $z$. As pointed out in Gil, {\it et al.} [2007, \S2.3], the points $z=e^{\pm i\pi/3}$ are always excluded from the domains of convergence of these expansions. B\"uhring [1987] has given a power series expansion that allows computation at and near these points. But, when $b-a$ is an integer, the coefficients of that expansion become indeterminate and its computation requires a nontrivial limiting process. Moreover, the convergence becomes slower and slower in that case. In this paper we obtain new expansions of the Gauss hypergeometric function in terms of rational functions of $z$ for which the points $z=e^{\pm i\pi/3}$ are well inside their domains of convergence . In addition, these expansion are well defined when $b-a$ is an integer and no limits are needed in that case. Numerical computations show that these expansions converge faster than B\"uhring's expansion for $z$ in the neighborhood of the points $e^{\pm i\pi/3}$, especially when $b-a$ is close to an integer number.